


nothing fucks with my baby

by cordsycords



Category: L.A. By Night (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Eva Gets Back Her Man, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Written Pre-Finale, mention of drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-10 22:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20142940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordsycords/pseuds/cordsycords
Summary: Eva in the three days that Jasper is gone.





	nothing fucks with my baby

**Author's Note:**

> 90% of this fic was written before the season 3 finale was aired. It took almost two more weeks to post because I'm just Like ThatTM.
> 
> Title from NFWMB by Hozier because I have no control over my life.
> 
> Edit 05/04/2020: This fic now has cover art by the lovely PuzzleDragon. Go check them out on [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuzzleDragon) and [Tumblr](https://puzzle-dragon.tumblr.com).

[](https://puzzle-dragon.tumblr.com/post/617146184343158784/the-cordsycords-collection-we-can-just-kiss-like)

She does not remember ever feeling so light since her Embrace, the years shortly afterward plagued with the dark ambition of one so keen to climb the Pyramid. Strauss had been a valued teacher, at one point in her unlife, his strictness and cruelty perfect conduits for her spark of natural thaumaturgical talent.

And then she fell in love, or whatever passes for it in these nights.

Then came the complacency, and complacency combined with ambition lead to the eventual desire to break some rules, to push and pull at the caution tape that surrounded her to see what she could get away with. Not very much, in fact. Very little at all.

There was anger as well, and spite, and despair, but mostly anger. It festered and boiled under her skin for years, and it took that amount of time to leave it behind, to move on and recover, to believe that she could be better.

Almost 40 years in the same spot is more than enough time to make it a home. She's filled her haven with books and dried flowers, pieces of things that she's collected over the years. It's a place for peace and quiet and solitude. It's a place to heal. It's a place all to herself.

She finds that she hums to herself more often than not these days, songs that she used to listen to that remind her of being young and alive. Her feet skip to the beat every once in a while, seemingly all by themselves as her mind focuses on other things, thoughts of magic and a new mystery to solve. And perhaps, even, of a boy who had texted her earlier that night with a string of emoticons that made no sense whatsoever, but were endearing nonetheless.

Her bubble of light content pops at about 3:30 in the morning with a call. She almost races to pick it up, though hesitates when she recognizes Annabelle's number instead of Jasper's. 

"Hello?" She says

Annabelle answers, "Eva! Oh, thank god you picked up we are freaking the fuck out and-- oh fuck you are not going to--."

"Annabelle, you're going to need to calm down."

"Right, okay… um so the Scourges, the two Lasombra dickbags, were here because Victor was all like 'The Maharani is neutral ground' and all that, and everyone was welcome and so they came and we talked to them and then they wanted Sanchez, and the others were like 'Sure have him' but I didn't want to--"

"Annabelle," she interrupts again, the sinking pit in her stomach quickly realizing where Annabelle's lengthy story was eventually going to lead, "What did-- What happened to Jasper?"

Annabelle pauses for a length of time that is both too long and too short, "He attacked Aurora, and they disappeared. They-- the Cam--they have him, Eva." She trails off, finding it hard to speak.

She freezes, her fingers clenching around her phone as she forces herself to speak, “Where?”

“We… we don’t know,” Annabelle admits.

“When?”

“Um… not long, half an hour or so? Victor’s still trying to get the club empty, Nelli’s off talking, I dunno. I just-- I thought you should know.”

“Thank you, Annabelle,” she says truthfully, digging her nails into the empty palm of her hand.

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen tonight, but--”

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Stay safe, Annabelle,” she replies, quickly ending the call before she loses her composure. The phone drops to the floor, and she immediately follows, crumbling to her knees on the floor, no doubt dirtying the fabric of her bright white dress.

Within her, the Beast sings, shifting and expanding as if to stretch out its limbs, getting ready to fight, _There she is! We’re back in action. Who are we gonna kill, little flower? What powers should we unleash today?_

She swallows, clenching her teeth, attempting to quiet the alluring voice.

_Ha! Not today, little flower. You’re angry, I’m angry, the world is going to shit, and you have a pretty, new boy to save. You need me. Just deal with it._

She allows herself to sit for another thirty seconds, then a minute, then five. It’s so easy to sit, to just accept that it’s happening again and there’s very little that she can do about it. It would be so easy to set everything aside, to run away again and leave the complicated mess of things behind, all to save her own undead soul.

_But you’d hate yourself for it._

In the end, the Beast is always right.

She bleeds for him, pints of blood that seep from carefully made cuts in her arms until her stomach gnaws with hunger. The stench of boiling blood is not an uncommon one within her home, combined with the deadly sweetness of belladonna brewing in her cauldron over an electric induction stovetop. She keeps bagged blood on hand for times like these, greedily slaking her hunger until her Beast is slurping with delight at being properly fed. The day-sleep creeps up on her, and she just barely makes it to her bed before she falls unconscious.

She wakes up the next night with a cold determination, collecting supplies for various rituals and wards into a bag before disappearing into the darkness. She had promised to visit the Coterie and assist in their plans, but she has to stop somewhere first.

The Weird Sisters’ new haven is located in Valley in a nondescript house on a non-descript street that, as promised, has a hot-tub in the backyard. She doesn’t knock at the front door, going right to the side door and tapping at the window, keen to avoid detection. Kyoko is the one to answer it, questioningly looking outside before Eva appears right in front of her.

She jumps in place, “Ah! Hey, Eva, Hester didn’t tell us you were coming around, she just--”

“It’s fine, Kyoko,” she stops her, “This is unexpected, I know, I’m not actually here to see you, I--”

“Y’need to talk to Red?” Kyoko asks, her voice lowering to a whisper. Eva nods, and Kyoko lets her right in, gesturing up the stairs, “She’s the last door on the left.”

“Thank you, Kyoko,” Eva replies going up the stairs. The directions aren’t actually needed, the other three bedrooms on the second floor of the house aren’t lived in by its undead inhabitants, as they prefer the dark safety of the basement, so there’s only one person who can live up there. 

She assumes that it’s the closed door, and she quietly knocks on it before she hears someone inside shuffle some stuff around and yell out, “Come in!”

She finds Chloe sitting at a desk chair in front of a laptop hooked up to a monitor. The other half of the desk is occupied by something quite large, obscured by a brightly coloured sheet that matches the one on the unmade twin bed. There's a corkboard hung up on an empty wall displaying notes, pictures, and newspaper clippings all connected by pins and lines of string.

Chloe looks surprised to see her, but quickly guards herself, sitting back in her chair and crossing her arms, “Hey, Eva, I didn't think-- Do I need my new dose already?"

Eva goes to sit on the edge of the bed, "Um, no. I came to, well, we need to talk--"

"I swear I'm being careful," Chloe interrupts, tripping over her words. She immediately puts a hand out on the sheet-covered device on her desk, "Nobody gives a shit about Arkangel."

“I’m not here to talk about that, either.”

She shifts in her seat, looking vaguely disheartened, “Ok, then what’s the visit for? I mean, I’m happy about not getting chewed out by mom and dad, but then this seems… out of place.”

Eva sighs, fingers gently tracing ring-like patterns across her skin. They had both been ignoring Chloe, for better or worse, and she had turned to the Arkangel persona to get noticed once more. Eva had figured it out quite quickly, but Jasper still didn’t know, “It’s about Jasper.”

“Mmh, what about him?” Chloe asks, attempting to feign disinterest and failing horribly.

“He’s… he’s been taken, Chloe.”

Her entire posture changes, from guarded stiffness to sudden anguish, a feeling all too familiar for the other girl, especially when talking about Jasper. 

“What happened?” She asks, quiet and demure.

“I’m not completely sure. All I know is that he was taken, and his friends they’re-- _we’re_ gonna try to get him back.”

Chloe nods her head, unable to look at Eva, obviously trying to hold back any swell of emotion, “That’s-- that’s good. I can, uh, I can reach out to… people. They might know something, or--”

_No, no, no, **no**! We don’t need your help, we can do it on our own._

“_I_ will get him back,” Eva says, each word laden with a hiss of determination.

She bleeds until there’s nothing left for her to give, whispering Latin as she fights to keep her head standing so close to an open flame. She soaks Annabelle’s jacket in it once more, adding a hint of the Brujah’s own blood, and the rest of the Coterie’s, to prevent friendly fire. By the end of performing multiple rituals in a row, her stomach is curling in pain. It’s almost the end of the night, and Victor suggests that she stay in one of the rooms at the club, but she politely declines.

The Coterie learns next to nothing that first night, spent reaching out to contacts and trying to find the whereabouts of the missing Jasper. Annabelle paces, Victor talks on his phone, Nelli watches on silently stewing in her own anger. She can’t take the stillness, it feels like a defeat, so she goes to see if she can find some answers of her own.

She finds herself wandering the streets of the valley. She’s done it enough times, she knows exactly where to go, to find the people that no one cares for, that society would rather leave to die on the street than lift them up. It’s an odd picture, her in bright white going from body to drug-addled body. She can tell what they’re on, having done this so many times, but is looking for someone in particular. She’s taken from Wendy before, the young blonde woman doesn’t even hesitate to offer Eva her neck. In the end, the feeling of the Kiss is an even better high than the cocaine.

_Fuck yeah, here we go. Haven’t felt this free in ages, what else are we getting done tonight?_

She barely has an hour left to sunrise, but it’s enough time to get to his haven, invisibly marching across the city with determined grace. Her Beast sings with the high, and with it, she can push through the sudden urge to go to sleep. She knows how to get in, closes and locks the door behind her, and goes straight to the door that leads off of the sitting room. The maglite is by the second door, the one that leads into the labyrinth. She picks it up, and walks down into the twisted, haunting corridors without hesitance.

There is perhaps no way to describe how long she spends down there, relying on memory to navigate and exhaustion to tell time. She believes she does fall asleep at one point, remembering waking up on the floor at some time during her exploration. The entire venture is an exercise in insanity, she is almost sure of it. It is more likely that she will be lost down here forever than it is to find her eventual destination.

_What's the plan here? Kill ourselves in this place? You're giving up already? But think of all the assholes we could burn. I want them turned into dust, I want them to scream. You want that too._

"Shut up," she mumbles into the darkness, reaching out a hand to steady herself on the wall.

_C'mon, sweetheart, you've done worse._

"Not anymore," and she pushes on, even as she struggles to do so. The voice is loud in her head, like a wild animal trying to get out of a hunter's trap.

She does finally reach the room with the torpored Nosferatu, fully exhausted by the time she does. The shadows that had been released into the room several nights ago are gone now, but the leylines are still there. She places her hands on them, feeling the power coursing through the magical veins into her own. 

She could spend hours here, looking through the strands, searching through the city, trying to discover the secrets of the leylines, trying to control the power that they hold. They do nothing but frustrate her. She can see every part of the city, but she cannot find Jasper. She can extend her reach into every nook and cranny, yet she can’t affect anything beyond a smashed vase.

She works until she collapses, screaming at the walls of the labyrinth

The mere sight of Rodrigo is enough to put her over the edge. It’s been days of the Beast roaring it’s opinion in her head. That, combined with the hunger and the high from two days earlier, just looking at Rodrigo, seeing the temptation of revenge so close and attainable, the words of power rise past her lips without thought, and suddenly the feeling of growing static electricity hums within her blood.

_Fuck yes! Finally! Mess this worthless shit’s life up, babe. He’s the one who took him from us, he’s the one who broke him. He deserves it. **You** deserve it. Remind them what we can do, and they won’t take him again. He’ll be all ours._

It’s right. It’s always right. It was right so many years ago, and it’s right now, and it’s anger mixes with her own, powering the spell until it bursts from her hands in three large arcs of lightning. She opens her mouth in a silent scream, tears welling at the corners of her eyes. Rodrigo’s body lifts in the air from the force of it all, scorching his body until it is a blackened husk, falling lifeless to the ground.

The static dies down. Her vision blurs. She barely notices Victor bolt away from the scene in fear. Through the haze, she recognizes that Jasper reappears, kneeling next to the body. The smell of burnt flesh is startlingly familiar.

_I’m proud of you._

She shivers, curling in on herself. She feels like she's underwater, the world slowing down around her, hazy and slow, unable to grasp at anything that can save her as she drowns.

"You're gonna need to teach me that," she hears Jasper say from beyond the surface. She feels his finger on her chin, raising her head so that he can look in her eyes. His face takes up her vision, bright blue eyes sharp and impressed, "You were amazing." He whispers, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

She sobs, the cry shaking her body before she can raise a hand to silence herself. Her knees feel like they will collapse from beneath her and she stumbles forward, finding herself in his arms before she can fall.

"Hey--" he exclaims as she wraps herself around his body, burying her face in the side of his sweater that's not soaked in blood. His arms wrap around her, one hand going to cradle the back of her head. Shivers wrack her body as if the electricity that she wielded only a few moments ago was still affecting her, she quivers and shakes and all but breaks down. His arms feel safe and warm, and his chest vibrates under her cheek in a low, comforting growl.

He has to extricate her from his arms, uncurl her from around him so that they can move on. She stands aside as he helps move the debris, meek and small as a child. As soon as he’s done, his arm is back around her shoulders, guiding her back towards the car. He pushes her to go into the back, where they can take up the bench seat together. She places her forehead against the window, watching the world go by outside as Campbell pulls away from the hacienda. 

She hears voices talking, but can’t focus on them, still trapped underwater as she is.

Jasper nudges her shoulder, whispering in her ear, “D’you want us to drop you off at the conservatory?”

She takes a minute to respond, unable to find the words, “Where’re you gonna be.”

“Victor wants me close, I’m going back to the club. Bed’s bigger.”

“Mmh.”

More talking. She drifts in and out.

She doesn’t surface again until they’re back at the Maharani, in Jasper’s set aside room. He sits her on the edge of the bed, pulling down the hood of her shawl so he can unwind the flowers from her hair. He pulls her arms out of the draping piece of cloth and sets it aside on the sheets, kneeling in front of and taking her hands in his. He rubs his thumbs across her knuckles.

“Are you okay?” he asks, trying to meet her unfocused gaze.

“I’m-- That spell is-- I’m tired,” she mumbles, grasping at the words, "I'd... forgotten how it felt, and I don't enjoy the feeling."

"Okay," he nods, continuing to rub her knuckles, "That's, uh, that makes sense."

"It was-- that's the first time I," she stumbles out, trying to come to terms with it. He leans up to press a kiss to her cheek, bringing her into his arms once more.

"C'mon, let's go to bed."

"Hnn."

He leaves her once more, but he never disappears from her unfocused sight, taking his sweater off with a pained groan, accompanied by the creaks and groans of bone and muscle grinding together. He uses a knife to cut down the front of his bloodied t-shirt, unable to lift his arms high enough to remove it. A small wardrobe in the corner is the source of a Temple of Boom hoodie, which he zips up to his neck, covering the hole.

He leads her to lie down with gentle prodding, moving the covers around her curled up form until she’s encased in them. The light turns off and he lies down next to her. She attaches herself to him, breathing in the chemical scent of the mass-produced hoodie. It doesn’t smell right.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, voice cracking, “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”

She can’t say that it’s okay, because it isn’t, “I couldn’t let them hurt you again,” she explains, curling her fingers into the covers, clutching at them until her hands begin to shake. Tears pool at her eyes as she finally breaks. He hugs her tighter, curling himself around her.

“I understand now. I get it. I’ll do better. Just-- please, you won’t have to do it again. I’ll do it. Let me do it,” he’s shaking too, voice trembling, descending into a low growl, “I would destroy them all, for you to never have to do that again.”

His sincere desperation is overwhelming. That he’d condemn his soul as such to prevent the tarnishing of her own is no small offer, and nothing to be taken lightly.

Hopefully, by now, he knows that she’d do the same thing for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to feed the muse. Don't worry, it doesn't need blood, kudos + comments will do just fine.
> 
> You'll find my haven [here](https://cordsycords.tumblr.com), it's easier than a labyrinth.


End file.
